Nick Clegg is expected to be questioned about the Lib Dem report into the Lord Rennard controversy on LBC.

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3.22pm BST

Afternoon summary

• Mark Simmonds, a Foreign Office minister, has said that Sir John Chilcot will write to people he is planning to criticise in his report on the Iraq war this summer giving them notice of what he intends to say. Simmonds said the government would not comment on the decision to go to war until the Chilcot report was published. But during the debate a string of MPs stood up to denounce the decision to go to war. One of the most powerful speeches came from the Conservative MP Rory Stewart, who served in Iraq as an adminstrator after the war was over. If he had been an MP in 2003, he might have voted in favour of the war, he said. But he would have been wrong.

The starting point of any discussion around Iraq has to be an acknowledgment that Iraq was a failure and a scandal, that however we look at the costs and benefits of what happened in Iraq, it was probably the worst British foreign policy decision since the Boer war, or in fact since the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1839. Never has the British government made a worse decision ...

This matters because there are many, many similarities between what we did in Iraq and what we are doing in Afghanistan, and many similarities between what we did in Iraq and Afghanistan and what we occasionally think of doing in Mali or Syria. At the base of our problem is our refusal to acknowledge failure, our refusal to acknowledge just what a catastrophe it was. And our refusal in this House to acknowledge how bewildering it was, how little we know as a House, how complicated countries like Iraq are.

Stewart said it was not enough just to blame George Bush and Tony Blair; the decision making process in general was at fault.

These people, Blair and Bush, do not operate in a vacuum, they operate in a culture which did not challenge and shape the debate sufficiently ... But if you look at what got us trapped on the ground in Iraq, why Gordon Brown for example found it difficult to get out of Iraq, why President Obama found it very difficult to say no to the surge, is that of course these people are part of a much bigger system.

I do think that it is dangerous if we put the whole blame simply on Blair and Bush. It is very, very dangerous because the implication then is if you simply don't have Blair and Bush around, we're never going to get in these messes again. We will get in these messes again because we haven't created the proper government policy structures required to really think these things through and above all, not just to avoid the decision of invading but to get out once we've made a bad decision, to get out more rapidly.

Labour's Glenda Jackson also said the decision to go to war was one of the worst ever taken by a British government.

In my lexicon, an 'anniversary' is something to be celebrated. There is absolutely nothing to be celebrated about the Iraq War, the most disastrous policy decision in my opinion, certainly in my lifetime and possibly in the history of this country.

Labour's Michael Meacher said that he voted for the war but that he was now "utterly ashamed" of his vote and that it was the worst political mistake of his life. And Plaid Cymru's Westminster leader Elfyn Llywd said the West had betrayed Iraq.

Military plans were not constructed properly since they were not properly discussed. The only plan for peace was to allow some limited Western funded repair work of the Iraqi infrastructure, to be carried out by American companies in which the neocons advising Bush had considerable financial interest. There is no interest in reinstating Iraq now to anything resembling a 21st Century country. Shame on them.

As we teeter on the brink of entering yet another conflict in the Middle East, I would urge this prime minister and his cabinet to learn from these obvious mistakes of our recent history. Mr Blair decided we should be in: the history books will be the judge of why.

• A quarter of clinical commissioning groups are in financial difficulty, it has been reported. According to the Health Service Journal, the NHS England finance director Paul Baumann told a conference that around 25% of CCGs - the bodies set up to commission health services under the coalition's Health Act - were short of money. This is what he said.

About a quarter of CCGs are having real difficulty making ends meet, with little or no reserves to fall back on. In quite a number of cases [there is] also a significant underlying deficit to deal with. There's plenty of risk in that context that a number of them will tip into the red, if ambitious [efficiency] and activity reduction plans aren't delivered, or if [there are] problems in the wider health economy for which they are responsible.

Despite paying out £170 billion in tax credits alone, the previous government failed to meet their target to halve child poverty by 2010 and far too many children were left behind. They were fixated by moving someone from one pound below the poverty line to one pound above, without any substantive effect on their lives.

While this government is committed to eradicating child poverty, we want to take a new approach by finding the source of the problem and tackling that. We have successfully protected the poorest from falling behind and seen a reduction of 100,000 children in workless poor families. Our welfare reform programme will further increase work incentives.

Today's figures underline the need for better measures of child poverty that are not so heavily dependent on where we draw the poverty line. Our new approach with wider measures is not designed to hide the scale of child poverty in this country, but to make clear the real challenge we face so we can start dealing with it properly.

From Anne Marie Carrie, chief executive of Barnardo's

With the number of children in absolute poverty rising to a worrying 3.8 million, and those in relative poverty set to follow suit, the government is clearly failing to protect those UK families who live at the tipping point between hardship and crisis.

The families that Barnardo's works with tell us they're already budgeting on a shoestring, squeezed by the rising price of essentials and high childcare bills. This year many of these households will be pushed into financial chaos when the cap on benefits increases take effect, compromising the health and life chances of children as they are forced to grow up in poverty.

From Katie Schmuecker, policy and research manager at the independent Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Today’s figures show us average income fell for the second successive year, and income from benefits has also fallen as a result of cuts. As a result, we’re seeing little change in the overall rate of relative poverty.

However there has been an increase in the absolute poverty rate, which suggests more people overall are experiencing hardship. This is not simply about who is and isn’t in work – couples where there is only one breadwinner saw a particularly large increase in absolute poverty, and two in three children in poverty live in households where at least one person works.

Poverty is a waste of human potential and it costs our country dear – JRF research shows child poverty alone costs us £29 billion a year.

We need to look beyond social security for solutions to poverty. The rising tide of in-work poverty shows we need a jobs market where people earn enough to make ends meet, but we also must address the overbearing cost of living and how public services, such as education, can help people out of poverty.

From David Holmes, chief executive of Family Action

It is deeply worrying that the proportion of children in absolute poverty is rising for the first time since the early Nineties.

Behind these statistics are thousands of children whose families can't afford for them to celebrate birthdays, eat fresh fruit and vegetables or have a warm coat in winter. Two-thirds of children in absolute poverty have at least one parent in employment, suggesting work is failing to pay for too many.

The government attributes this rise in absolute poverty to prices rising faster than incomes, which suggests its 1% cap on benefit increases is likely to have a damaging impact on its commitment to reduce child poverty in the coming years.

• Caroline Lucas, the Green MP, has said the MPs should always be given a free vote on any decision to go to war. Opening a debate on the Iraq war, she said that MPs would have been more likely to vote against the war if they had been allowed to vote with their consciences. She has also set out her arguments in an article for Comment is free. In his speech in the debate Mark Simmonds, the Foreign Office minister, said the government would not comment on the rights and wrongs of the decision to go to war until the Chilcot report had been published.

• The Department for Work and Pensions has published poverty figures for 2011-12 showing that real incomes fell last year for the second year in a row and that real incomes in 2011-12 were no higher than they were a decade before. Campaigns have also highlighted figures showing that the number of people living in absolute poverty rose by one million and that two thirds of children in poverty are living in working families. (See 11.40am and 12.43pm.)

• Maria Miller, the culture secretary, has announced that she will host a summit on the subject of harmful content on the internet with internet service providers, search engines, mobile operators and social media companies on Tuesday, June 18.

Despite all the talk about ‘scroungers’ and generations of families never working, today’s poverty figures expose comprehensively the myth that the main cause of poverty is people choosing not to work. The truth is that for a growing number of families work isn’t working. The promise that work would be a route out of poverty has not been kept as wages stagnate and spending cuts have hurt low income working families.

It’s no coincidence that 2011-12 was the year nearly £1.5 billion of targeted support for low income families was cut. The lowest paid also gained the least from increases in the personal tax allowance because nearly all of their gains were clawed back by the benefits system.

The government deserves some credit for holding back an increase in relative child poverty by giving extra support to the poorest families through child tax credit in 2011. But the frightening truth is that this is the calm before the storm. New analysis from the Institute for Fiscal Studies suggests we face a massive surge of 1.1 million more children in poverty by 2020 coalition’s tax credit and benefit cuts.

The Resolution Foundation makes a similar point. Matthew Whittaker, a senior economist at the foundation, says on a blog that the composition of poverty is changing.

Where once fewer than half of those in poverty lived in working families, the proportion increased steadily from 2003-04 onwards. As our work has shown, this trend has been especially concentrated among families in which just one parent in a couple works, linked to poor wage performance among single-earner fathers.

The causes of this are likely to be many and varied, and it’s worth reflecting again that the number of families in poverty is falling in absolute terms, but the implication is clear: if we are serious about tackling poverty, it is no longer enough to focus on reducing the number of workless households (crucial though that is); we also need to focus on low pay as well as making it easier and more worthwhile for both members of a couple to work.

Today’s figures highlight how little progress is being made in tackling child poverty. Over a quarter of children are now growing up in households below the poverty line.

While incomes have fallen for middle earners too, this huge decline in living standards is having a disproportionate impact on poorer families.

Oxfam also focuses on these figures. This is from Oxfam's Katherine Trebeck.

It is unacceptable that in the seventh richest country on the planet, we've seen the number of people living in poverty increase by nearly a million. With cuts to public services and social security in the pipeline, the number of people living on absolute low incomes will only increase over the years and people will find it even harder to overcome their situation.

More than four in ten single parent families are living in poverty in the UK today – that means going without many of the essentials that most families take for granted: a hot shower, three meals a day or new shoes for your children when their feet grow.

There is action the government can take now to help families out of poverty: single parents overwhelmingly want to work but many can’t find flexible or part-time jobs that pay a decent wage. The single parents who do find work are disproportionately in low-skilled and low-paid jobs and as today’s statistics show, more and more are failing to escape poverty through work.

By helping to create the family-friendly jobs single parents need, increasing support for childcare and balancing tax credits and benefits so that work always pays, the government can help more single parent families over the poverty line and into sustainable work.

Updated at 1.08pm BST

12.14pm BST

Yes, it does seem to be a tar sands protest.

Some chap protesting about the Canadian PM being walked through Lords car park in cuffs. Covered in some brown sludge, so am guessing oil?

The Government is to review the use of controversial “zero-hours” contracts under which employees are put on standby and not guaranteed a minimum amount of work.

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, is worried that some companies are abusing the contracts and has asked his officials to review the growth of the contracts in both the private and public sectors. Although he is unlikely to ban them, they could be restricted or workers on them given more protection.

Mr Cable, pictured, told The Independent: “In the past decade, there has been a steady rise in the number of zero-hour contracts. For some these can be the right sort of employment contract, giving workers a choice of working patterns. However, for a contract that is now more widely used, we know relatively little about its effect on employers and employees. There has been anecdotal evidence of abuse by certain employers – including in the public sector – of some vulnerable workers at the margins of the labour market.”

Here is the most benign interpretation of Lord Ashcroft’s conduct. In recent years the Tory peer, like many men at the end of middle age, has gone on a voyage of personal discovery. He is expanding his horizons and trying to reinvent himself. Hence the attempt to get to know Ed Miliband, and the development of his new online media empire, which has given him a dangerous monopoly over political information (my colleague Charles Moore has usefully christened him “the Beaverbrook of the internet”).

So here is a word of well-meant advice for Lord Ashcroft: it’s time to quit the Tory party. You are no longer happy in it, and it has never felt entirely comfortable with you. The time when rich men, especially those with a record of (legally) avoiding British tax, could buy a political party has gone. If you want to make persistent, childish and personal criticisms of a Conservative prime minister, it is much better that they should be made from the perspective of a private citizen.

Average incomes fell for the second successive year in 2011–12. Official statistics recorded a reduction of 3% at the median (middle) and 2% at the mean, after accounting for inflation (measuring incomes before deducting housing costs, BHC). This comes on top of large falls in 2010–11, leaving median and mean income 6% and 7% below their 2009–10 peaks respectively.

• Average incomes were no higher in 2011-12 than they were a decade earlier once inflation is taken into account. This applies to mean and median income. But this is based on the retail price index (RPI) measure of inflation. The IFS says RPI overstates the true rate of inflation that households face and that if you apply an alternative measure, RPIJ, real median income has not improved since 2004-05 and real mean income has not improved since 2005-06.

• Inequality was "substantially lower" in 2011-12 than before the recession. That is because richer households lost more between 2007-08 and 2010-11 than poorer households did. However, as the IFS explained in a recent report, the effect of benefit cuts coming into force in the coming years will largely reverse this effect by 2015-16.

• Absolute poverty (defined as the number of households living on less than 60% of the 2010-11 median income) is at its highest level since 2002-03. There are now 10.8m households in absolute poverty.

• But relative poverty (defined as the number of households living on less than 60% of median income) was "substantially lower" in 2011-12 than before the recession. It fell from 11m to 9.8m (16%), its lowest level since 1986.

10.44am BST

Lord Dannatt, the former head of the army, and Lord Stirrup, the former head of the armed forces, have both been cleared of breaking House of Lords rules in relation to lobby allegations.

I reiterate that my role is to investigate allegations of breaches of the Code of Conduct and not to police members’ non-parliamentary activities. I have not found any evidence that Lord Dannatt breached the Code of Conduct. The only references to the House of Lords in the transcript are limited to briefings arranged by ministers and visits by the serving Chiefs of Staff. Lord Dannatt made no claims of using his position as a member to exercise parliamentary influence for personal gain. Nor did he offer to provide parliamentary advice or services. He entered into no relationship which gave rise to an interest which had to be registered. Equally, there is no evidence that he had failed to register any other defence-related interest. Thus, I dismiss this complaint against Lord Dannatt.

And here's is what he said about Stirrup.

I reiterate that my role is to investigate allegations of breaches of the Code of Conduct and not to police members’ non-parliamentary activities. I have not found any evidence that Lord Stirrup breached the Code of Conduct. Indeed, he volunteers to the journalists that an interest of the type they were discussing would have to be entered in the Register of Lords’ Interests. The only references to the House of Lords in the transcript are limited to Lord Stirrup making it clear that questions should not be asked in pursuit of a specific interest. He then goes on to give his frank views on the merits of parliamentary questions in eliciting information. Lord Stirrup made no claims about using his position as a member to exercise parliamentary influence for personal gain. Nor did he offer to provide parliamentary advice or services. He entered into no relationship which gave rise to an interest which had to be registered. Thus, I dismiss this complaint against Lord Stirrup.

The phone in did give quite lively when Nick Clegg was asked about Helena Morrissey's report into the Lord Rennard affair and Nick Ferrari kept pressing Clegg on whether or not he would attend a diversity course, but it was a slightly odd line of questioning. Unless I've missed it, the Morrissey report does not say Clegg should attend a diversity course. But it does say the party should "introduce unconscious bias awareness training at concerence" and that there should be online training available relating to the handling of complaints. Clegg repeatedly refused to say he would go on a diversity course. He said Ferrari was trying to "belittle" the issue by turning this into the story.

Here are the main points.

• Clegg said he took responsibility for the problems identified in the Morrissey report into the way the Lib Dems handled the complaints about Lord Rennard's conduct. "Of course I take responsibility as leader of that organisation for flaws that were identified in that report," he said. "The most important thing for me as the leader of the Liberal Democrats is to take it on the chin and to make sure the changes [recommended in the report] are put in place." He also said the report showed that the Daily Mail had been wrong to accuse the party of a cover up.

• He said he backed Michael Gove's plans for GCSE reform. Although he opposed Gove's original plans, Gove had now got the balance right, Clegg said.

• He said that he was satisfied that the British security service were obtaining information in a way that was legal.

I am absolutely convinced that the use of communications data and the ability to look at the content by the intelligence agency are being done in a way that is legal.

Safeguards in Britain were higher than in most other countries, he said.

• He said he was still opposed to the plans for a so-called "snooper's charter". Although there was a need to ensure that IP addresses can be matched to mobile phone, he said still thought that the plans originally proposed by the Home Office were disproportionate or unworkable.

• He defended the way the police dealt with anti-G8 protesters in London this week. "I got the impression that these protesters didn't want to talk to the police or even the public on what they are protesting about," he said.

Clegg says he takes these things seriously. But he says Ferrari is trying to "belittle" the issue.

And that's it.

9.30am BST

Q: What do you feel about the way the police handled the G8 protests in London this week?

Clegg says he supports the police. The protesters did not cooperate with the police. They did not even explain to the public why they were protesting. He says he was "none the wiser what they were protesting for, other than a general dislike of the world".

9.29am BST

Q: What is happening about the NSA revelations about GCHQ?

Clegg says the intelligence and security committee is investigating.

Coming back to the snooper's charter, he says any legislation must be proportionate and workable.

The government will not go "the full extent that was originally proposed".

9.27am BST

Clegg says RBS needs to downsize.

Q: Are you going to apologise to voters and Lib Dem supporters for the Lord Rennard affair?

Clegg says Helena Morrissey has published an independent report. She said, "very fairly", that the people who dealt with these complaints dealt with them with the right motives, but not with the right processes. But she found that there was no cover up, as the Daily Mail alleged.

He says in future the party must handle these matters in a better way.

Q: In hindsight, what should you have done?

Clegg says if he knew now what the women were saying ..

Q: But it was high-profile stuff.

Clegg says it was his job to fix these problems. But he urges Ferrari to read the report. There was no cover up, he says. It is just that the right kind of processes were not in place.

Q: She recommends diversity courses. Would you take one?

It's not a matter for me, says Clegg. He says Morrissey said these courses should be available.

Q: But would you take one?

Clegg says what is more important is whether the party is implementing changes. He is doing this, he says, and he will do more.

Q: Why won't you go on a diversity course?

Clegg says he does not want to address that. He is doing more to make the Lib Dems more diverse.

Clegg says the report made "difficult reading, sobering reading" for the Lib Dems.

9.20am BST

Q: What is the government doing to encourage "ladies" to get out on their cycles?

Nick Ferrari says Andrew Gilligan, Boris Johnson's cycling "tsar", has said the getting more women cycling would reduce the problems caused by "testosterone" on the road.

Ferrari asks if Clegg has used a Boris bike. He hasn't, he says.

Ferrari says Boris will be doing his own Clegg-style phone in. Clegg says he will be calling him "slacker Johnson" because he is only doing a phone in once a month.

Coming back to cycling, Clegg says there is a rush at the end of the day.

9.16am BST

Clegg returns to AS levels. They will remain, he says. But they won't count towards A-levels.

Q: So that two-year study could be wasted?

Clegg says the changes will restore more emphasis on end-of-course exams. Coursework will remain in some disciplines. But using coursework is not always fair on children whose parents are not able to help them. There is a "rough and ready fairness about exams", he says.

9.15am BST

Q: I'm disabled, and my disabilities are not going to get better. I'm confused by the PIP (personal independence payment, the benefit replace disability living allowance). I'm worried I will lose it.

Clegg says that if she has a continuing disability, she will continue to get support. In fact, she may get more. But some claimants, whose condition has changed, may be reassessed. It makes sense to reassess people, because there are so many people on DLA.

9.11am BST

Q: Are AS levels saying?

Clegg says he needs to look at that.

9.11am BST

Q: Don't you think going from a system for GCSE exams with continuous assessment to one where final exams count for everything is going too far.

Clegg says he disagrees. He is happy with Michael Gove's reform plans as they are now. In fact, he strongly supports them. Today's Ofsted report shows the need for brighter pupils to be stretched. The Gove plans get the balance right.

Q: Exams have not necessarily got easier. Putting all the emphasis on exams might be unfair on pupils with special needs.

Clegg says special needs will be recognised.

The questioner says his son as Asperger syndrome. He gets extra time to complete exams.

Clegg says children with special needs will have their needs recognised when they are examined.

Q: But there will be more pressure on exam day.

Clegg says he knows that Gove wants to ensure that children with special needs at catered for.

9.06am BST

Clegg says intelligence agencies get hold of information to keep us safe. Everyone accepts that. The issue is, whether the information is accessed in a way that is proportionate.

Q: Don't let David Cameron stitch you up like a kipper. You need to show some backbone.

Clegg does not address this. They move on.

9.04am BST

Nick Clegg on LBC

Call Clegg is starting now.

Q: We have been misled by William Hague about GCHQ. And you have been done up like a kipper. Will you show some backbone and oppose the snooper's charter.

Hague says he has said repeatedly that he has not been "persuaded" of the case for what's called a snooper's charter. He agrees with the need to ensure IP addresses can be matched to mobiles. But, on a wider snooper's charter, tracking email traffic, he thinks the proposals are either disproportionate or unworkable.

On the NSA revelations, he says there are some really exacting "checks and balances" controlling what the intelligences services can do. He has looked at this very carefully, and he thinks the British controls are "much stronger" than in most other jurisdictions.

Q: So you are comfortable with this. You think people are not being snooped on?

Clegg says he is absolutely confident that the powers are being used in a way that is legal and proportionate. "I do think it's important that people are reassured that there are real checks and balances."

8.53am BST

It’s Call Clegg this morning and the deputy prime minister may find his LBC phone in more tricky than usual this morning.

Nick Clegg and three other Liberal Democrat ministers have been criticised for failing to properly investigate allegations of sexual harassment against the party’s former chief executive Lord Rennard, according to a review of the party’s internal culture and handling of the complaints.

Businesswoman Helena Morrissey, who conducted the inquiry, criticised the roles of the deputy prime minister as well as the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, equalities minister Jo Swinson, and the health minister Paul Burstow for failing to launch a formal investigation after alleged victims came forward.

She said: “I think that he [Clegg] made a mistake by not calling for a formal inquiry. Mistakes were definitely made by Clegg, Danny Alexander and Jo Swinson – they could have done much more to bring about an inquiry into these allegations which were serious and demanded further scrutiny”.

As usual, I’ll also be covering all the breaking political news as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best politics from the web. I’ll post a lunchtime summary at around 1pm, and another in the afternoon.